Wartime inspired baking

The Sotonettes have been at the Make Do and Mend Vintage Fair today, promoting both the Sotonettes WI but also the WI as a whole.  The Make Do and Mend theme got us thinking about what sort of things we could have on our stand and we decided to go for some wartime inspired baking.  The Second World War led to rationing all over the world which certainly reduced the choice and amount of ingredients available to families but improved ingenuity! 1940s ladies didn’t want to be eating tasteless or boring food and still wanted cakes and treats to enjoy, even if it was less frequently than before.

There are lots of sources of wartime recipes with guides on rationing (and how rations changed over time based on supply and need). We found a fantastic blog called The 1940s Experiment – one lady decided to lose weight by living with rations rather than following a specific diet.  She’s posted loads of recipes and they are definitely worth a browse.

For the fair, we made Anzac biscuits and Rock Buns. Give them a go – they’re absolutely delicious and very easy to make!

 

Bread!

breadToday is the last day of Real Bread Maker Week, which has run from the 10th to the 16th of May 2014.

I have long dreamt of being able to make a loaf or roll as good as those I get in the lovely little Hampshire bakeries, but never thought I had the time or skill to do it! I’ve watched plenty of Paul Hollywood’s muscles ripple while throwing dough around his kitchen but it looks like a bit too much hard work!

However, earlier this year I went along to the Baking Lab of Bake with Maria to learn the art of French Bread making with a fantastic tutor, Emmanuel. We made chocolate chip brioche, baguettes and fougasse – all without breaking into a sweat!  I’ve now discovered a relaxing (and successful way to make bread) – have a look on our Facebook page later on as I’ll be posting pictures of this week’s baguettes later on…

my breadTo find out more about making bread, have a look at the website for the Real Bread Campaign – it’ll convert anyone away from supermarket bread!

If you too have tried making your own bread, please let us know and pop up some pictures on our Facebook page!

Jen x

Birthday Cake!

2014 cake

A few of you have asked for the recipes for our birthday cakes – if you’re a keen baker, treat yourself and your friends with this one – everyone said it was delicious!

This year’s birthday cake (above) was a Honey Chocolate Cake.  I decided to make this cake with Fairtrade ingredients as it’s Fairtrade fortnight at the moment.  If you’d like more information about the Fairtrade Foundation, have a look at their website.  Sainsbury’s and the Co-op are the best supermarkets if you want to buy Fairtrade goods without the inflated price tag! They both stock an excellent range of teas, coffees, chocolates, spices and of course, bananas!  There’s also a Fairtrade shop in Eastleigh and our members recommend Rice Up Wholefoods in Southampton city centre.

fairtrade ingredients

The recipe is from Nigella Lawson’s recipe book Feast but it’s also online at Nigella’s site.  I’m known to tinker with recipes a little – the only change I made this time was to make the glaze with 100g of milk chocolate and 75g of dark chocolate – the recipe suggests it all to be dark chocolate but I find that can make it a little bitter tasting (for me anyway)! I used Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference Fairtrade Belgian Milk and Dark Chocolate, Cadbury’s Bournville Fairtrade cocoa and Sainsbury’s Fairtrade light brown soft sugar.

The cake should be adorned with very cute little bumble bees made of marzipan and flaked almonds but unfortunately time got the better of me this week!

The WI are very keen on campaigning about our dwindling bee population, so maybe this cake and its decorations may be seen at another Sotonettes meeting soon!

If you’re a keen baker too, I’d love to hear from you and share ideas!

Jen x
(Sotonettes Committee)

 

 

 

Sotonettes Announcements

Not a very exciting blog post today but an important one nevertheless!

1. Craft Night is tomorrow (Tuesday). Although we normally meet at Cafe Creme, this place is unexpectedly unavailable this week so we are changing venue – we will now be chatting and crafting at the Slug and Lettuce on Above Bar Street (in the upstairs room where we have our main monthly Sotonettes meetings).  Still no charge and everyone is welcome, whatever your crafting ability or interest!  For more info, have a look at the Craft Night page.

2. Sotonettes Committee Elections are coming! Even though we are only celebrating our 2nd birthday this month, big decisions need to be made.  Once a year, all members get a chance to vote for who they’d like to be running the Sotonettes but also nominate themselves to join the new year’s committee!
If you’ve enjoyed coming to our meetings but would perhaps like to have a bit more say in what’s planned or how we are organised, this is your chance!  If you like working with other people as part of a team and think what we get up to is your kind of thing, we’d love to hear from you.  Over the next week or so we’ll be profiling a few current committee members so you can find out what sort of things committee members spend their time doing!  Meanwhile, read about our 2013-14 committee here.

If you’d like to stand for the Sotonettes Committee (and we really hope lots of you do), please let us know by Friday 21st February. You can email us at sotonettes@gmail.com, find us on Facebook or chat to one of the current committee in person at either the Craft Night or Book Club.  If you’re just curious about what it involves, still get in touch and we’ll provide as much info as we can.

Have you been bitten by the Scrapbooking bug?

Our January meeting was all about scrapbooking – we really hope we’ve given you some motivation to get your favourite photos off your phone and memory cards and into frames and albums!

For anyone who would like more details on scrapbooking, our speaker Nicki Reynolds runs local scrapbooking classes and crops (just think freestyle scrapping in a social setting) on a regular basis.  You can find out more about her company Crafts2do on their Facebook page.

We got most of our materials from a local family-run company near Ringwood called Craft Obsessions – they have a huge selection of everything you might ever need for scrapbooking but also card making and other paper crafts. You can also find them on Facebook. Our embellishments came from The Range – there are 2 Southampton stores which stock low-cost trims and some papers if you want to avoid waiting for goodies to arrive in the post!

UKScrappers is an amazing online treasure trove of ideas, inspiration and tutorials too – and there are plenty of people online in their forums if you ever get stuck.

We totally forgot to take photos of everyone’s creations at the meeting but would love to create a little album online to show off all the creative talents that were uncovered that night!  If anyone fancies taking a picture of their layouts and sending them to sotonettes@gmail.com, we can promise they’ll get shown off on our blog here!

An insider’s view of Sochi

Jen (our Sotonettes webmistress) writes about the Sochi Olympics…

I’m settling down to watch the Opening Ceremony of Sochi 2014 – it’s certainly going to be an interesting Winter Olympics!  Are you keen on watching the winter sports or would you rather be outside taking part? Even if I am Scottish, I think I prefer the warm of my living room!

Back in 2001, on my very first day at university, I’d just moved into my student room when there was a knock on the door.  I opened the door to meet a confident blonde girl from Essex who introduced herself as Joy – she would be my new next door neighbour.  At the time, I had no idea I’d be sharing a bathroom with a future Olympic official for women’s ice hockey!

While the rest of us were out at some rather dodgy nightclubs in Oxford, Joy would be leaving early to dash off to the local ice rink to get some 11pm practice on the ice.  It turned out that she was an ice hockey referee for both men’s and women’s matches in the UK and in amongst tutorials, exams and studying, she managed to fit in trips to various rinks in the south to referee and officiate as well as train for the varsity team in the wee small hours of the night.

Inside Bolshoy

Fast forward to 2014 and Joy has just arrived in Sochi for her third Olympic games.  She’s writing a blog to keep others updated on her progress but is also writing about her road to Sochi and the whole Olympic experience.  Joy is a real inspiration to other women – she’s worked hard to build a career while pursuing her hobby to the highest level. She was the first woman to referee in a men’s professional league and her 3rd Olympic Games is an amazing achievement for someone who’s only just entered her 30s.  Even the BBC have reported on her!

If you’re looking for a real insider’s view, I’d highly recommend her blog at http://www.joyinsochi.blogspot.co.uk/ – it’s unmissable reading (even if you don’t like ice hockey)!